‘I’m glad to see the back of it’: Graduate details experiences of LMSS

After announcing that The Guild has decided to denounce LMSS as a society, The Tab recieved an anonymous email from a graduate, regarding the situation. He described his experience with segregated dinners, the infamous Smoker and how easy it is to get caught up. 

To be honest, I’m glad to see the back of it. Years of this pompous, arrogant, self important society have had a negative effect on my university experience. I have never met a group of people who cling to their society like it’s some kind of cult, and defend it even in light of the most heinous offences. I (and people I know) were skipping for joy when the Smoker thing was made public. The funniest thing about this whole debacle is the incredulity of it’s members that it’s come to this. None of them can actually fathom why a) the LMSS was wrong in the first place, and b) that the guild thinks it hasn’t done enough.

The complaints about the segregated dinner events was something which I have thought for years. Being inside the LMSS is like living in the 50s. “What’s wrong with it though, we’ve done it for years.” These defences come from men and women in equal measure, as if they’re indocrinated in the society’s unofficial religion. It’s hilarious how they thought the guild wouldn’t see through their “measures” to appear as an open and inclusive event.

The male committee members were there for 10 minutes at the start for a quick photo. No matter what they say, no men were at the “ladies dinner”, and no women were at the “mens dinner”. And if any girl thought that she would actually feel welcome at a men’s dinner event, she would be deluded, because I (a male) attended it once, and never again – it was practically the Bullingdon club. Just because you don’t put ‘men’s dinner’ on your advertising, doesn’t make it a unisex event.

Most medics are completely decent people, and most LMSS supporters are just people who have got caught up in it all. It’s such an easy thing to do, especially because it starts on day one of first year, and you are pushed to attend as many events as possible – it’s a ‘society’ in every sense of the word. However, I think they believe that fact to extremes – the LMSS see itself as above The Guild’s rules, and in fact the leadership didn’t hide their desire to remove the LMSS from the guild when elected. Also, ‘the society secretary’ is traditionally always a woman – why? Because a secretary is a woman’s job. Simple as that. I don’t think a woman has ever been Treasurer or President, because they are men’s roles.

That script was the tip of the iceberg compared to things that have come before, practically Sesame Street compared to previous years.

Responses to the Smoker script were mixed

I’ll admit that the guild have always had it out for the LMSS, and medics have never endeared themselves to the rest of the student body, but I think they’ve finally been shut down due to their sheer arrogance. The society acts like it is above the rules that other guild societies have to abide by. They insisted (and continue to insist) they met all the requirements that the guild had set out, and to be fair, they have made some changes, but they’re mostly superficial.

The society has been banned from the guild buildings in the past for a period of time due to particularly raucous events causing damage. A side point to that is that the LMSS has been banned from venues in town, and there’s actually not many places that they can hold events nowadays. The LMSS have always been anti-guild themselves, and talk of withdrawing from the guild was brought up before this all kicked off.

The LMSS has many many great qualities, centred around it’s academic, charity, and pastoral endeavours. However, it is so heavily tainted by it’s ‘boy’s club’ reputation, alcohol and lad culture, the whole Smoker event, it’s lack of inclusion for anyone who isn’t white Anglo-Saxon.

Current members are fiercely loyal to the LMSS, egged on by alumni, including senior doctors (just look up #jackleggatesboys on Twitter – surely the fact that’s even a thing says it all). There would be a pretty strong rallying against anyone who even thought about setting up a new society or even engaging in it. The only way ahead in that regard is involving the current committee in it’s setting up, but even then they are far far too proud of the whole ‘170 year society, older than the university’ thing to let it go – any new society would flounder pretty quickly. The only upside that most people would agree with, is that it would provide an outlet for the good society work e.g. lectures, workshops, and charity work, to continue.

The Tab is in correspondence with a graduate defending the LMSS, and his account will be published soon.

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